Campfire
by chickenshitt
Summary: Around the campfire while keeping watch, two boys comfort and confide in each other about their bleak futures. It is a good thing they will always have each other. H/K friendship fic.


A/N: I had planned for his to be smut, but it ended up as gen/non-slash/super-innocent-friendship fic. How on earth did that happen? Ah, I just love the dynamics of these two. Once again, nope, not slash. Sorry.

**Campfire**

Burning wood crackled loudly, piercing through the dead of the night.

The silence unnerved Hiei. The Makai was his home, so he knew it was more natural to hear guttural screams from some hapless demon who had been turned into dinner, but never such a complete silence that it smothered the campsite and even the entire forest. Belatedly he remembered that there was a curfew now, which was put in place after Enki had won the last Makai tournament. _A curfew, for demons! Ha!_

_Or perhaps it's just I've spent too much time in the Ningenkai, where it is so noisy that peace and sleep were precious things to be had._

But Hiei realized that what really unnerved him was Kurama's silence. He glanced at him: his partner sat right across him, seemingly intent on poking through the campfire with a twig. He barely said anything of import since Yusuke and Kuwabara had turned in, and their watch had begun.

"Your ki's been messed up all day," Hiei ventured. He saw Kurama look up to regard him, and noticed how the crease on his forehead momentarily disappeared as his features softened when their eyes met.

_Hn_, Hiei thought, _How well he knows me, and he loves showing it off._

"I'm all right, Hiei, thanks for asking," Kurama said, answering the unasked question. "It's just...things back home...-" The irritated and pensive look returned, and Kurama petulantly poked at the fire again.

Hiei inhaled sharply in a show of impatience, leaned back on his arms, and said, "You can talk to me about it if you want. It's not like we have anything better to do until daybreak." He thought of pretending to yawn, too, but opted to save it for another time. Instead, he kicked Kuwabara's ankle, which only stirred the psychic a bit.

"Oh, Mother is doing fine, as well as Father and Shuichi too, I guess. I wasn't...really...referring to them..."

"I see." _So it could only be..._ "The boyfriend... then?"

Kurama winced. "I thought I told you to stop calling him that."

Hiei was unperturbed. "Why not? Isn't that what he is?"

"He's not... not yet, anyway."

"Kurama, spare me," Hiei snapped, unwilling to go into litany again about how humanity had addled his _demon_ fox friend's brain since he started this...dating game of his...and how he absolutely despised it. Which of the two he actually despised was a matter he had opted to think about for another time as well.

"Just tell me what the fuck happened." Hiei touched a finger to his temple, feeling a headache about to start.

Kurama was amused. "Well, before we left for this mission, we got into an argument about how I was always going off somewhere for extended periods of time and I can't tell him. It started when I don't agree to every single date he proposes, simply because I don't have the leisure of time. And frankly, I don't like going out much - you know that."

Kurama warily snuck a look at Hiei, who looked absolutely bored, and confessed, "He kind of hit me."

"That human trash?!" Hiei hissed, moving to sit up on his calves, ready to pounce. "Kurama, why, _why_ do you do this to yourself?!" Now he was having that headache.

Kurama did not answer, casting his eyes to the fire once again. Hiei wondered if the forlorn expression that had settled on his friend's face was answer enough. The silence stretched a bit too long for Hiei's liking.

"So... what did you do? When he 'kind of' hit you..."

Kurama shrugged. "I walked away, and met up with you guys."

Hiei stared at him. "Seriously, Kurama... why... do you do this? Why do you let some human... Why do you seek out the company of humans who can't possibly... understand you?"

Kurama smiled somberly. The green eyes were bright with affection for his standoffish friend, but the rest of his expression melded with the shadows that the fire created. "That's exactly why, Hiei. I'm just looking for a bit of distraction. Entertainment, you might want to call it. And because they will never understand, it can never be serious."

"I do not understand why you would debase yourself like so, Kurama, or how you could stand to play with the feelings of poor humans."

"I get lonely, Hiei."

Now that took Hiei aback. For a split second he understood Kurama's forlorn expression as that, as _loneliness_, before the usual mask was back in place again, and the fox was unreadable as ever.

"Besides, that's what _normal_ humans do. Mother would have a fit if I at least didn't try."

"Hn." Hiei decided he would humor him, for now. "Does she know you're..."

"Gay? What do you think?" Kurama posed, raising an amused eyebrow at him. "There's a human saying, 'Mothers know best.'"

"That's giving them humans too much credit," Hiei snorted. Kurama laughed.

"And how many human mothers have _Youko Kurama_ as their son, anyway?"

Across the campfire, Hiei watched Kurama muffle his laughter behind a hand so as to not awaken Yusuke and Kuwabara, who were both snoring so loudly. Hiei marveled at how he and Kurama had been able to carry a conversation over such a din, or how no demon had come to attack them yet for it. He knew - and to this he conceded - it was the strength of the two boys' reiki, combined with his and Kurama's, that kept trouble-making demons away, and afforded them the luxury of a restful sleep in this treacherous part of the world.

_Anyway, it's good to see him finally lighten up,_ Hiei thought, focusing on Kurama once more, whom he noticed was also watching him. "What?"

Kurama shook his head, but his lips spread out into a slow smile.

"Are your thoughts finally rid of that stupid human?"

"Stupid human was never in my thoughts to begin with," Kurama said, still smiling.

"Then what?" Hiei was loath to think he was dragged into a conversation about detestable humans and their trifles for nothing.

This time it was Kurama who leaned back on his arms and huffed in impatience. "I don't know... it's the downside of choosing to be human. Of wanting to belong, yet being unable to... I'm not even sure I wholly want to, anyway, seeing as I'll never be able to. It's complicated."

"It's not. Just leave." Hiei had offered this as many times as they had the conversation before, but as much as he was at a loss for something better to say, he personally thought it was the _only_ answer.

"It is, because leaving is not an option. I've made up my mind, Hiei." Kurama said, his voice a curious mix of determination and resignation.

"Hn." Hiei grabbed a stray twig near Yusuke's foot and prodded the dying campfire in annoyance to bring it to life. Kurama would not change his mind, and the night had gone deeper; the putrid Makai air nearly chilling his bones had he not been a fire demon, and Kurama insisting on a pathetic life for the next ten decades or so. He was annoyed.

"You do realize you're condemning yourself to a human lifetime of misery," he said instead, hating how lame he sounded. He's gone soft.

Kurama absent-mindedly nodded. "Probably. I'll also probably end up a wrinkly old bachelor whom no one will want because he is antisocial, loves no one but his mother, and talks to no one but his plants and his imaginary demon friends."

Hiei half-heartedly glared at him. "Masochistic freak."

Kurama ignored him. "But it's true."

"That you like debasing yourself?"

"That it's all true. Whatever debasement ensues is an accidental side effect."

"Kurama, it pains me to have to say this, but I will anyway, for your sake," The unspoken 'because you're my friend' hung in the air, and Kurama smirked. Steeling himself, Hiei continued, "Why don't you... open your mind? Change how you think. Who knows..."

Here Kurama laughed so hard, he clutched at his stomach and tears came to his eyes. Hiei watched impassively as the infuriating fox slapped the dirt at one point. "Hey, I'm not the one who has decided to stay in the Ningenkai forever!" he snarled.

Kurama grinned at him, trying to recover his breath. "It sounds awful when _you_ say it, Hiei. But thank you."

He stood up, walked around the campfire, sat beside the Jaganshi, and wrapped his arms around him. They sat in silence like this, cheek to cheek, as they had done many times before.

The heavy chill in the air had killed the fire, and the two demons watched the wood embers cool, lost in their own thoughts. Somewhere in Makai, in the farthest horizon, dawn broke unannounced.

"It's merely a fact of life, Hiei, that I would live this lifetime alone. My love for my human mother is enough to see me through. You don't have to pity me-"

"I wasn't pitying you, Kurama."

"I know. But I hope you see me often, and not forget about me."

"Hn. When you made your decision, did you even think of me at all?" Hiei mockingly asked, aghast to think that he would have to visit Ningenkai more frequently than he minimally needed.

Kurama kissed him lightly on the cheek. "Hmm. I guess not," he admitted a tad too happily. Hiei glowered.

-end


End file.
